Elden Ring could be the start of something new, thanks to the community rethinking a much-loved feature of the game. The studio is already listening and thinking about what’s next.
After literally blowing up everything in 2022, Elden Ring is once again making headlines with the release of its huge DLC Shadows of Erdtree (theShadow of the World Tree). An XXL expansion, packed with content and just as spectacular as the original game. The game was quite a bit down on PC due to technical issues, but also because the first steps on the expansion are a bit… violent. Too much perhaps for some players apparently. But once tamed, the beast offers us memorable moments that we can discover alone or with others.
Elden Ring with others is even better
Yes, because we tend to forget it, but cooperation is also part of the Elden Ring adventure. So, adrenaline junkie warrior experts will tell you that facing bosses accompanied by one or two comrades is not heroic, and they are wrong, there is not just one way to play at Elden Ring and that’s the whole point. However, FromSoftware’s souls cooperation mode has something to surprise and disconcert players since it relies on a summoning system that can only be activated in very specific locations. We think in particular of certain dungeons or boss lairs.
This is also why gifted fans with their little hands have given birth to passive cooperative modes allowing you to play the entire adventure, from the tutorial to the end boss, in cooperation and without interruption. And that changes the whole experience to the extent that the game is not made to be played in its entirety with several people.
Miyazaki is not against it… on the contrary, in fact
During a short interview with PC Gaming, creator Hidetaka Miyazaki spoke about it. He said he was rather favorable to this type of game mode although that of Elden Ring was thought of differently. “For Elden Ring, we just wanted a more ‘casual’ style: start the mode, beat a boss and go back to your game. The player is not subject to any technical restrictions, he can just complete his objective and move on”implying that in passive co-op, once the objective has been defeated, you should stay in co-op or manually leave the game to return to your business.
But that doesn’t mean that we’ll never see such a mode in a souls game from FromSoftware, quite the contrary. Still in the columns of PC Gamer, Miyazaki affirms that it is something that he keeps in mind, even if it will not happen on Elden Ring. “That doesn’t mean we won’t consider other ways to play with full co-op – it doesn’t mean we won’t consider those kinds of ideas for our future games either.”
Souls playable entirely in cooperation, this could well be the new credo of FromSoftware which declares to consider the thing for the games to come. Coop is a mode very popular with players and the Seamless Coop mod available on NexusMod has been downloaded more than 3.6 million times. There is therefore a real niche to be taken, especially since most soulslikes which borrow the FromSoftware recipe also use the summoning system most of the time. We cross fingers !
As a reminder, Elden Ring and its DLC are available on consoles and PC, separately or in a pack.